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CHAPTER II. The market price of a Pakeha.?The value of a Pakeha '
as such.'?Maori hospitality in the good old times.?A respectable
friend.?Maori mermaids.?My notions of the value of gold.?How I got
on shore. Here I must remark that in those days the value of a
pakeha to a tribe was enormous. For want of pakehas to trade with,
and from whom to procure gunpowder and muskets, many tribes or
sections of tribes were about this time exterminated, or nearly so,
by their more fortunate neighbours who got pakehas before them, and
who consequently became armed with muskets first. A pakeha trader
was therefore of a value, say, about twenty times his own weight in
muskets. This, according to my notes made at the time, I find to
have represented a value in New Zealand something about what we
mean in England when we talk of the sum total of the national debt.
A book-keeper, or a second-ratepakeha, not a trader, might be
valued at, say, his weight in tomahawks?an enormous sum also. The
poorest labouring pakeha, though he might have no property, would
earn something?his value to the chief and tribe with whom he lived
might be estimated at, say, his weight in fishhooks, or about a
hundred thousand pounds or so?value estimated by eagerness to
obtain the article. The value of a musket was not to be estimated
to a native by just what he gave for it. He gave all he had, or
could procure; and had he ten times as much to give he would have
given it, if necessary; or if not, he would buy ten muskets instead
of one. Muskets, muskets, muskets ? nothing but muskets was the
first demand of the Maori?muskets and gunpowder at any cost. I do
not, however, mean to affirm that pakehas were at this time valued
' as such'?like Mr. Pickwick's silk stockings, which were very good
and valuable stockings '...
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